THE PROBLEM
The Community Based Development Program is now on its 25th year of implementation. Since its inception, it has completed more than 70 potable water systems and almost 200 agricultural projects, among others. Based on its vision and goals, CBDP has a two-fold task: first, basic services delivery; and second, empowerment. It has been successful in the first task of delivering services to marginalized communities, as attested to by external evaluators who have established that most of the projects implemented under the program continue to provide concrete benefits to communities. However, the task of empowerment, that is, mobilizing communities for self-reliance and self-determination, still has a long way to go. Unfortunately, this is the more important task. In fact, service delivery without empowerment is counter-developmental in the long term as it merely perpetuates mendicancy and dependency among beneficiaries.
Dr. William Henry Scott wrote that, in the history of mission work of the Episcopal Church in this country:
“The main appeal to the converts seemed to have been materialistic and many of the missionaries frankly used their high living standards and economic power as an incentive to conversion. Free foodstuff, clothing, buttermilk and chocolates were distributed so frequently and in large amounts that it led to a strong sense of dependency as the converted communities regarded the Church as a very rich institution from which material benefits can be derived.”
Such historically-developed attitudes of dependency and mendicancy pervade our communities up to this day. Despite transformational activities that are built into the CBPD, there has been no real breakthrough in terms of obliterating such destructive worldview. Certain individuals have gained some enlightenment from the developmental processes but the negative attitudes still dominate most ECP congregations.
THE PROPOSAL
What is contributing to the perpetuation of such dole-out mentality is the system of resource flow in CBPD which often involves large grants that have, in effect, made our people assume the role of receivers. Hence, external resource flow should be managed in such a way that it demolishes the unhelpful grant mindset and thus further the positive worldviews that support, rather than weaken, community development. The proposal is to transform communities into GIVERS and not merely RECEIVERS. This is more in accord with the biblical tenet, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”.
Lessons must be learned from CBDP’s experience on cooperatives. Originally, capital assistance to coops were given as grants. However, through increasing pressure from external partners [i.e. EED] and insistence from some church leaders, such as former Prime Bishop Ignacio Soliba, such capital inflows were eventually constituted as loans to be paid back by the coops. Thus, it is now policy and practice in CBDP that capital assistance to coops must be in the form of loans and not grants and the result has been amazingly more positive. There are more successful coops among those that have received loans than those which received grant assistance. Among the latter group [grant-assisted coops], only very few have survived and operate today.
Transforming communities from receivers to givers entails finding a way by which project beneficiaries are also able to share their blessings brought about by the project. But rather than constitute the fund assistance as loans, it shall be considered as a “recoverable grant” where at some point, the receiver must be able to “grant back” to others what it has received., This process, in the words of Heifer International, is referred to as “passing on the gift”.
The specific policy proposals therefore are the following:
1] Affirmation of the existing policy that fund assistance to cooperatives, associations or congregations for lending operations/business shall be in the form of loans, with annual interest rate of 12%. 7% of such interest rate shall be added to the principal while 5% remains with the coop, association or congregation.
2] Support to income generating projects or projects that have cost recovery mechanisms [such as rice mill, solar dryer, etc] shall be considered as “recoverable grant”. From the earnings of the project, beneficiaries shall set aside and complete an amount equivalent to the fund support over an agreed period of time, to be regularly deposited with the diocese. This built-up fund shall then be “granted” by the beneficiaries to support a development project of another community.
3] For projects that have no IGP component or very low cost-recovery mechanism [such as a potable water project], 10% of the cost shall be considered as “recoverable grant” which must be built up over a certain period of time and which shall be “granted” by the beneficiaries to support a similar project of another community.